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bne Tech
July 26, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 22
Russian mobile operators boost fintech services
Russia's "big four" mobile operators are actively expanding their fintech proposal, Vedomosti daily reported on July 19 in an overview of MTS, Veon (former VimpelCom, Beeline brand), MegaFon and Tele2 financial services.
Beeline, MegaFon and MTS Bank will issue payments and cashback cars to their subscribers, while Tele2 has proposed that its subscribers take out consumer loans from partner banks. But now the operators are also offering investment prod- ucts such as mobile marketplaces linking users with brokers and mobile investment applications.
MegaFon has introduced MegaFon Investments together with BCS Broker, which lets custom-
ers invest in the Moscow and St Petersburg stock exchanges and trade in six currencies. MTS oper- ates its own app and website, MTS Investments. Beeline and Tele2 allow customers to invest in the mutual investment funds of Alfa Capital and Sistema Capital.
Currently the mobile apps are not more competitive than direct investment with brokers and funds, except for minimal cashback for the transactions, but the services are planned to be develop further, by leveraging data penetrating and expanding the client base.
Kazakhstan attempts to spy on citizens’ web use via encryption-busting Qaznet Trust Certificate
Kazakhstan’s government appears to have embarked on a major “man in the middle” attempt at spying on citizens’ web communications in
the wake of the big anti-regime protests that broke out across the country during the June presidential election.
Internet service providers (ISPs) based in Kazakh- stan are being instructed to force their users
to install government-issued root certificates
on devices to allow agencies to intercept web traffic. The government has launched an encryp- tion-busting Qaznet Trust Certificate in the nation’s capital Nur-Sultan in a first test run.
A blog post from virtual private network (VPN) provider Private Internet Access characterised the move, commonly known in security circles as a man in the middle attack (MiTM), as one designed to "spy on its citizens' internet traffic".
"Forcing all of Kazakhstan's internet through one government issued certificate is a gargantuan privacy issue but it is also a security issue," the post said. It also noted that a hacker could gain control of the certificate itself and thus gain access to all the unencrypted traffic of every user.
Read the full story here